An entity needing data transfers from numerous devices can become a customer of a data transmission (and storage) service and contract with the service to provide a specified data transmission rate for the customer's devices. If a device or devices of the customer send too much data too quickly the customer can be charged for the excess data transmission rate, or service to some of the customer's devices can be interrupted, generally without the customer having advance notice of the problem or being able to control which devices have interrupted service.
Selectively disconnecting devices when the authorized data transmission rate is exceeded is not desirable because of the network overhead typically involved with reconnecting a device. Further, instructing a device to change its data transmission rate is generally not possible because most devices do not have that capability. In addition, communicating instructions to the devices can be difficult because different devices often have different protocols. This can result in the customer buying a higher data transmission rate than normally needed just to prevent devices from being dropped from the network when the authorized data transmission rate is exceeded, or the customer taking a chance that an important device will not lose service at a critical time.
This can be expected to become a greater and greater problem in the future as the “Internet of Things” gains more usage, and more and more devices are connected to the Internet. The “Internet of Things” is a term generally referring to a myriad of different devices and types of devices being connected or interconnected via the Internet. The devices can range from having limited available resources (memory size, processor speed, etc.) and needing small or infrequent data transmissions to having substantial available resources and needing large and/or frequent data transmissions.